Sydney
10 February 2002

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Lent: Words of Jesus 'ring out for us today'

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By Johanna Bennett

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal!
'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'
Was not spoke of the soul.
HW Longfellow

It is the greatest feast in the Christian calendar. It's Easter. But this feast is often overshadowed by Christmas. Maybe this is because joy is more evident at Christmas with the birth, rather than the death, of Jesus.
The lines above from the poet Longfellow allude to this with their Ash Wednesday reference to dust. And this is only the beginning of the sadness that accompanies Lent that must be borne before we celebrate the resurrection and the joy that is Easter.
Memory of the terrible event of Good Friday - the crucifixion - is central to the Christian faith and must be remembered, but we must also emphasise the joy of Easter for which Lent prepares us.
Pope John Paul II touches on joy and on hope in his Letter of January 2001, At the Beginning of the New Millennium (Novo Millennio Ineunte), which reflects on Christianity in the new millennium.
The team at the Catholic Adult Education Centre, which prepares a parish Lenten program each year, has taken the Pope's Letter and this emphasis on joy and hope as its theme for its 2002 Lenten program.
In his Letter, the Pope calls on us to "put out into the deep for a catch" as Peter and his companions did at Jesus' behest.
"These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm and to look forward to the future with confidence," the Pope says in his Letter.
He speaks of the need for prayer. "Is it not one of the 'signs of the times' that in today's world, despite widespread secularisation, there is a widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer".
The Catholic Adult Education Centre's Lenten program takes up the Pope's theme of hope, calling its program Hope Rings Out!
We are called as Christians to be bearers of hope in this troubled world, says Robyn Kirby, the centre's manager, who was responsible for the Lenten program.
The program emphasises hope by going back to the gospels and taking reassurance from its message that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever," which is also the message of the Pope's Letter.
On a practical note, the move to contemplating the gospels directly was requested in discussions following last year's Lenten program. The focus in previous years had been on contemporary Christian stories and, while this was good, people wanted something more gospel-focused this year, says Ms Kirby.
To achieve this, the program involves an hour - rather than the customary 20 minutes - spent reflecting on the Lenten gospel readings, allowing people to plumb the heart of the words and for "prayerful listening to the words" as Robyn puts it. Participants then share their thoughts on the readings with others in the group.
The program was launched last week via training workshops at four Sydney parishes - Drummoyne, Randwick, Kingsgrove and Mt Pritchard.
The workshops raised a simple but profound question: Why are we taking part in the Journey to Easter program?
Answers included: to build a vibrant Church; to experience and discover true intimacy and community, and to hear the Word and be Good News to the world.
These responses touch on Pope John's observation that in our highly secular world people crave spirituality. They also seem to crave the community that goes with truly spiritual living and there are precious few places in large cities that community can be found.
One of them is in a vibrant Church community, although building such is no easy task.